The enormous 871-page hardcover 1994 Scientology Handbook features over 700 insane and strangely haunting illustrations that promise positive effects in today’s turbulent society. The ultra-saturated photographs use vivid, heightened colours in a traditional comic book format to help navigate the reader through a world rampant with conflict, drugs, illiteracy, crime, terrorism, immorality… the list seems endless. “To have any decent future at all, you need to know this manual for living and use it.” The actors and sets were photographed in the early ‘90s on full-sized sound stages belonging to Golden Era Productions in Riverside County, California. Next door to the sound stages lies a computer facility with an uninterruptable power supply so when the rapture happens you will still be able to get onto America Online and check your email.

“I spent a few hours and read the entire Scientology Handbook. It gave me a sense of knowingness I’ve never had before. I knew that I was prepared for any situation in life and I’d know what to do. I began applying the technology from the book and now I’m considered a miracle worker and someone who knows what she’s doing. All my life I’ve tried to help people, but now with The Scientology Handbook, I can really help them!”

We hope you experience the same results as K.J. shared in her Amazon customer review.

After looking through several pages of photographs by 27-year-old Russian photographer, painter and digital artist Moppaa, it didn’t really come as a surprise to learn that he started his art career engraving portraits on gravestones. Beyond that, there is not much known about this young artist but I did manage to dig up an interview he gave less than a month ago over at In Dark We Trust and gained a bit of insight into what makes Moppaa tick.

Moppaa (Eugene Kuleshov) says his interest in photography started in 2012 after he surprised his girlfriend with a photograph and “liked” her reaction to it. I can only assume that her reaction was positive as Moppaa has gone on to create some fairly terrifying images that often feature his girlfriend (who appears to be his wife now) as the subject. Moppaa’s goal as an artist is to make people “shit their pants” (me = mission fucking accomplished!) and is planning to publish a children’s book of horror stories. When asked to describe himself in three words he choose, “maniac”, “paranoid” and “artist” (me = agreed). So please, grab another pair of pants before you view the following images from this young, beautifully deranged artist. You can also view his full gallery here. If you need me, I’ll be under my bed.

The Ramones pose for CREEM, 1978
Here’s a set of vintage photographs capturing rock stars, punks, and pop royalty playing pinball. Many of these are candid shots, taken on the road during downtime while on tour. Some were taken in such a casual environment that information regarding who took the photo, and when, is scarce.

Debbie Harry, 1977. Photo by Bob Gruen.

David Johansen, Lenny Kaye, Dee Dee Ramone, and Andy Paley at C.B.G.B.’s, 1977. Another one by Bob Gruen

These incredible color photographs of the German battlefront during the First World War, 1914-1918, were taken by Hans Hildenbrand.

The novelist and playwright, J. B. Priestley, who fought in the war, described the difference in strategy and the folly of attitude between the opposing armies in his memoir Margin Released:

The British Army never saw itself as a citizens’ army. It behaved as if a small gentlemanly officer class still had to make soldiers out of under-gardeners’ runaway sons and slum lads known to the police. These fellows had to be kept up to scratch. Let ‘em get slack, they’d soon be rabble again. So where the Germans and French would hold a bad front line with the minimum of men, allowing the majority to get some rest, the British command would pack men into rotten trenches, start something to keep up their morale, pile up casualties and drive the survivors to despair. This was done not to win a battle, not even to gain a few yards of ground, but simply because it was supposed to be the thing to do. All the armies in that idiot war shovelled divisions into attacks, often as bone-headed as ours were, just as if healthy young men had begun to seem hateful in the sight of Europe, but the British command specialized in throwing men away for nothing. The tradition of an officer class, defying both imagination and common sense, killed most of my friends as surely as those cavalry generals had come out of the chateaux with pol mallets and beaten their brains out…

...I still feel today and must go on feeling until I die, the open wound, never to be healed, of my generation’s fate, the best sorted out and then slaughtered, not by hard necessity but mainly by huge murderous public folly.

The Guardian has suggested an alternative version of the “selfie” called the “shefie.” In other words a portrait of the books and personal items displayed on people’s shelves—a literary shelf life, you might say. It’s just another in the seemingly endless list of self-obsessed, narcissistic images brought about smart technology—who’d a thunk sharing this stuff on social media was what the Internet was invented for?

The Guardian are currently accepting pictures and videos of people’s shelf lives, so if you have nothing better to do, and want to impress your pals by submitting a pic of all those heavy-weight literary tomes you’ve bought but never read, or you’ve just redecorated and have some simply gorgeous furniture to die for…then hop over to The Guardian for details of where to send your portrait or video. Meanwhile, here’s what others have been posting.

Designer Francesca Lombardi has created a menagerie of haunting origami animal masks, which have been photographed in beautiful black and white portraits by fashion photographer Giacomo Favilla for a series called “One of Us.”

Titled ‘‘One of Us’’, the project consists of black and white portraits of people sitting in a vintage armchair, while wearing beautiful origami masks. With the intention creating an impression of an imaginary world, where animal and human natures blend together as one, each mask has been laboriously folded over and over again to resemble a different animal. Be the animal a puma, a rabbit, a crocodile or a cat – they all take their turn in ‘‘being the face,’’ be that temporarily, of a person sitting to have their photo taken where their most striking feature is the fact that they have no eyes – they are in fact stylised blindfolds in the shape of animals.

DM readers in London might like to know that the series will be exhibited at The Book Club beginning on November 28th. Or 28 November, if you prefer.

It was Gloria the cat that first brought Gemma Kirby Davies the “gift” that started her photographing dead animals.

“It started about 18 months ago when Gloria (the cat) brought me a gift,” Gemma tells Dangerous MInds. “A perfectly intact, but totally lifeless mouse–which as it fell from her mouth to the floor, seemed to sink into the earth with a complete sense of purpose and ultimate timeliness. It was his time to go, and the earth swallowed him back up. It made me feel a huge sense of peace toward death.

“Gloria rarely eats her prey, and so the mouse’s corpse was given back to nature. In one of my favourite books, Jim Crace’s Being Dead, there are beautiful descriptions of nature reclaiming nature and how through the death and decomposition of living things, nature is renewed and the dead (once living matter), prevail in the earth, the soil and the plants.”

Gloria’s gift inspired Gemma to begin photographing dead animals, when and wherever she discovered their bodies, and curating these beautiful and moving pictures on her website Peace at Last. It should be made clear that Gemma has nothing to do with the demise of any of the animals photographed, and her work aims to preserve something of each creature’s final beauty. The site is introduced by the poem “Death Be Not Proud” by John Donne:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost over throw
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure - then, from thee much more must flow;
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones and soul’s delivery.
Thou’rt slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke. Why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more. Death thou shalt die.

Gemma Kirby Davies: We, like all animals will one day die. It’s something I find sad, but reassuringly certain. I hope my photographs evoke a sense of how I perceive death; wholly still, eternally quiet and completely calm.

I see death as stillness and as sleep. Not all of my images are cute and fluffy; some animals may have come to a brutal end and their visceral wounds reflect that. But death for me is always an end to chaos: an end to suffering, peace at last.

Dangerous Minds: What attracted you to this subject matter?

Gemma Kirby Davies: Growing up I was always interested in dark themes in art; Francis Bacon’s paintings and macabre literature. I love Taxidermy, and have been extremely inspired by this art trend, especially the exquisite work of modern artists like Polly Morgan and Nancy Foutts.

Yes, there is a deeper meaning behind what I am doing, but I think the colours and composition of my pictures work on a superficial level too – dead animals can be visually stunning… and much easier to photograph when still.

DM: What has the response to your work been?

Gemma Kirby Davies: It’s not for everyone. My aunt’s response to the invite to my recent exhibition was, “Of course I’ll come and support you dear—as long as you don’t expect me to ever put any of it up on my walls!” and on applying for a stall at Spitalfields Art Market, I was advised that my work wasn’t family friendly and cautioned that my photographs could be “interpreted as disturbing”… I didn’t have the heart tell them that that was sort of the point!

I think art should always incite feeling, and if we all got excited about the same things then life would be rather boring. Reactions like that - especially from an art market in London’s seemingly edgy East End - prove that there is a real stigma around portraying death in art. If I have hit a nerve with this subject matter then I am glad of positive and negative responses as it opens up a debate.

Gemma is now developing a Peace At Last book, which will include pictures sent to her by other artists. If you are genuinely interested in submitting a picture, “your personal interpretations of this theme (photos of ‘peaceful’ dead animals),” then please send your images to peaceatlastphotography@yahoo.co.uk Alas, Gemma can’t offer a fee, but if published in the book each artist will be credited and “of course get free champagne at the book launch!”

Discover more of Gemma Kirby Davies’ incredible photographs at her site Peace at Last.

Armed with his Leica M4, photographer Bob Mazzer spent two decades documenting London’s commuters, tourists, and workers, as they traveled through the city’s famous Underground system.

Mazzer shot most of these photographs as he traveled to-and-from work. An exhibition of his Mazzer’s incredibly evocative images was first shown at a Greater London Council exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall in the 1980s. View more here.

I fell in love with the circus when I was about four. It was Billy Smart’s Big Top, where I sat with my parents and brother on tiered wooden benches, eating candy floss, watching parabolas of delight unfurl on the trapeze, high-wire acts hover magically on tip-toe, acrobats build structure from chaos, and clowns colorfully spill across the sawdust. It is a love that has lasted, and I still feel the cold-water shiver of excitement whenever the circus comes to town.

These stunning color photographs from the 1940s and 1950s of circus performers, are taken from Dominque Jando’s superb The Circus Book: 1870-1950. The images are so vibrant, one could almost step into the frame and join in all the fun.

Rouch was one of the founders of cinéma-vérité, whose work influenced D. A. Pennebaker and Albert and David Maysles. Rouch also developed the “jump-cut” in Moi, un noir (years before Jean-Luc Godard took credit for it), and was a pioneer of Nouvelle Vague. For his movies, he is also known as the “Father of Nigerian Cinema.”

Depardon is a self-taught photographer, who began his career as a photo-journalist covering the wars in Algeria, Vietnam, Biafra and Chad. He is a member of Magnum, and is internationally recognized as a photographer and film-maker.

A Portrait of Raymond Depardon captures an engaging moment between two greats of film: director Rouch and photographer Depardon discussing and contrasting their individual approaches to their crafts.

It’s a great wee film and rewarding for the insight it gives. It was shot in Paris on April 19th, 1983, at 7pm.

This week, there have been vigils and marches in response to the NYPD shooting and killing Kimani Gray in Brooklyn. I was there on Wednesday, and although the vigil and march started out peacefully, the cops decided to block us from using a crosswalk while we were on the sidewalk, and continued agitating the whole night. I believe that’s what we call a “police riot.”

I was only able to photograph the beginning of the march since there was a quick end to my night when I was hit by a thrown object. An arrest was happening to my left, and I was hit on the right side. I received a concussion and was driven to the hospital in an ambulance where a doc put 5 stitches in my head. I have no idea what it was, or who threw it. If it was one of the many young, rightfully angry friends of Kimani Gray, then I honestly can say I would not be angry with them. Instead, I am angry that the NYPD shot 11 rounds at 16 year old boy, hitting him the back and killing him – which is what cause this outrage in Brooklyn.

If we want to seriously change the world, then we need more activists and photographers like Jenna Pope to bear witness to the truth, to give a damn and make a difference.

If you want, you can support Jenna Pope fight for justice, one photo at a time, by donating here. Thanks.

Smith was ill for a lot of her childhood - sick with bronchitis, tuberculosis, scarlet fever and ‘three different kinds of measles’. Though she has claimed she was happy throughout her childhood, Smith did, for a time, think of herself as “alien to the human race”, as she explained in an interview with the Observer in 2005:

‘From very early on in my childhood - four, five years old - I felt alien to the human race. I felt very comfortable with thinking I was from another planet, because I felt disconnected - I was very tall and skinny, and I didn’t look like anybody else, I didn’t even look like any member of my family.’